"At present no decision has been made to proceed with any
transaction and HSBC will make a further statement if or when
appropriate," it added.

Rumours have circulated over the last few days that HSBC is
looking to get rid of its Brazilian banking operations after
the boss of the Brazilian unit
of Spanish bank Banco Santander admitted at a press conference,
as reported by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, that
the group is weighing up its options over a possible
acquisition.

“We can’t speak for HSBC Brazil, but there’s a very initial
process for the sale of the bank (in Brazil) that we’re going to
analyze,” said Jesús Zabalza, chief executive of Banco Santander
(Brasil) at a press conference in Brazil this week. “We haven’t
made an offer, we haven’t even opened a data room for this
operation.”

On May 11, Macquarie analysts Thomas Stoegner and Ken Ang
said in a note that the era of the "too big to fail" bank could
be coming to an end in the UK, and
HSBC should break up its operations.

They added that the bank is definitively unprofitable because it
is running too many businesses.

Macquarie estimated that up to 40% of HSBC's businesses and
markets don't pay their way, by earning less in profits than they
cost to maintain. The worst offenders are the global banking and
markets arm and operations in Europe and America. These
businesses are effectively being subsidised by the
high-performing Hong Kong unit.